An algorithm trained to predict the past will reproduce it. Where women and girls have been undercounted, misclassified, or excluded from the historical record, a system optimised purely for accuracy will encode that exclusion and deliver it at scale.
The Alliance’s founding proposition is that this is correctable, and that correction is a design decision — made early, tested rigorously, and governed transparently. We call it affirmative action for algorithms: extending the logic of corrective public policy into automated decision-making.
In 2019, Women at the Table delivered the Affirmative Action for Algorithms declaration at Women in Data Science Zürich. The A+ Alliance was founded that year by Women at the Table and Ciudadanía Inteligente to carry the argument into practice.
From 2021 to 2024, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (TEC) co-led the Alliance, anchoring the Feminist AI Research network (f<a+i>r) and its programme of research from Global South and Majority World contexts.
In 2025, Code for Africa joined as co-lead, bringing thirteen years of civic technology practice and the technical infrastructure that makes community-led AI development possible rather than theoretical.
We convene and support a global community of researchers, technologists, and practitioners developing feminist approaches to AI — through the f<a+i>r network, the Global Directory, and open publication.
Our paper → prototype → pilot method takes community-defined problems through to tested, owned, deployable solutions
We produce the research, methods, and practical instruments — algorithmic impact assessments, procurement guidance, lifecycle testing frameworks — that governments and institutions need to hold automated systems to account.
• Women’s rights organizations that know exactly what needs to change and need the technical means to build it.
• Researchers working at the intersection of gender, rights, and machine learning.
• Policymakers and procurement officers who need something more actionable than a set of principles.
• Technologists who want their work to be governed by something.